Sweet 16 would do more for Rutgers as a basketball brand.
Conversely, if we won the BiG Conference Tourney, we'd probably be a 3 or 4 seed and the stain of losing to a 14 or 13 seed would be a net negative.
Like it or not but the university is a business. Like any other business, if there was a division that put out a subpar product AND was losing money then it would naturally be scrutinized.